Combining Philosophers

Ideas for Irenaeus, Charlotte Witt and David Hume

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8 ideas

15. Nature of Minds / C. Capacities of Minds / 2. Imagination
Memory, senses and understanding are all founded on the imagination [Hume]
     Full Idea: The memory, senses, and understanding are all of them founded on the imagination, or the vivacity of our ideas.
     From: David Hume (Treatise of Human Nature [1739], I.IV.7.3), quoted by Stephan Schmid - Faculties in Early Modern Philosophy 5
     A reaction: He seems to have in mind his theory of associations, which are not rational.
15. Nature of Minds / C. Capacities of Minds / 7. Seeing Resemblance
A picture of a friend strengthens our idea of him, by resemblance [Hume]
     Full Idea: Upon the appearance of the picture of an absent friend, our idea of him is evidently enlivened by the resemblance.
     From: David Hume (Enquiry Conc Human Understanding [1748], V.II.41)
Hume needs a notion which includes degrees of resemblance [Shoemaker on Hume]
     Full Idea: Hume needs a notion of resemblance where some things resemble a given thing more than other things do, and some may resemble exactly, and some hardly at all.
     From: comment on David Hume (Treatise of Human Nature, + Appendix [1740]) by Sydney Shoemaker - Causality and Properties §02
     A reaction: An astute and simple point. Once you admit degrees of resemblance, of course, then resemblance probably ceases to be a primitive concept in your system, and Hume would be well stuck.
General ideas are the connection by resemblance to some particular [Hume]
     Full Idea: All general ideas are nothing but particular ones, annexed to a certain term, which gives them a more extensive signification, and makes them recall upon occasion other individuals, which are similar to them.
     From: David Hume (Enquiry Conc Human Understanding [1748], I.VII.17), quoted by Edwin D. Mares - A Priori 08.2
     A reaction: This is close to Berkeley's idea that we can only grasp particulars. Personally I think the idea of (psychological) abstraction is unavoidable. Irrelevant features of particulars need to ignored.
Hume does not distinguish real resemblances among degrees of resemblance [Shoemaker on Hume]
     Full Idea: Hume regarded the notion of resemblance as unproblematic, ..but any two objects share infinitely many Cambridge (whimsical relational) properties, and resemble in infinite ways. He needs real resemblance, which needs degrees of resemblance.
     From: comment on David Hume (Enquiry Conc Human Understanding [1748], V.II.41) by Sydney Shoemaker - Causality and Properties §2
     A reaction: [compressed] See Idea 191. We forgive Hume, because he is a pioneer, but this is obviously right. Draw a line between 'real' resemblances and rest will be tricky, and bad news for regularity accounts of laws and causation.
15. Nature of Minds / C. Capacities of Minds / 8. Remembering Contiguity
When I am close to (contiguous with) home, I feel its presence more nearly [Hume]
     Full Idea: When I am a few miles from home, whatever relates to it touches me more nearly than when I am two hundred leagues distance.
     From: David Hume (Enquiry Conc Human Understanding [1748], V.II.42)
15. Nature of Minds / C. Capacities of Minds / 9. Perceiving Causation
An object made by a saint is the best way to produce thoughts of him [Hume]
     Full Idea: One of the best reliques which a devotee could procure would be the handiwork of a saint, because they were once at his disposal, and were moved and affected by him.
     From: David Hume (Enquiry Conc Human Understanding [1748], V.II.43)
Our awareness of patterns of causation is too important to be left to slow and uncertain reasoning [Hume]
     Full Idea: Our inference of like effects from like causes is so essential to the subsistence of human creatures that it is unlikely to be trusted to the fallacious deductions of reasoning, which are slow, develop late, and are liable to error.
     From: David Hume (Enquiry Conc Human Understanding [1748], V.II.45)